My reaction to Ms. Hope's classroom scenario was quite impressive. I was in awe at the task she was challenging these kindergarteners to participate in, and then the fact that they carried it out so well was even that more impressive. I know it takes time and effort to get to this point in your classroom, because she had to teach the children was schema was, and then go beyond that and teach categories the different kinds of comprehension she was looking for. But once she was able to explain this to her students, they were able to participate in meaningful learning while learning how to make connections to what they were reading. Gill's article also brings up interesting points. She talks about how students have to make prior connections before they can begin to comprehend what they read. Once they make these connections, they can adjust their existing schema to help make sense of the new content presented. One thing, I believe I would have trouble with in the classroom, would be helping students activate this prior knowledge. It also made me feel better to read that you don't have to teach ALL of the strategies. Just start with one, and students will begin to improve their comprehension skills from one strategy alone.
Here is a website with comprehension strategies:
http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/literacy/comprehension_strategies.html
1. What are some interesting post activities that you can incorporate to test student's comprehension without doing boring worksheets?
Week One Blog Post
10 years ago
An interesting post activity that I have heard about is asking the students to write a added chapter to the book they read (or if it is a picture book, do a paragraph). This would allow them to be creative and use their background knowledge but also be a great way to test for comprehension. In order to make their added chapter flow, the student would have to understand the story they read.
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